“Her ex-husband.”
“Other than him.”
“No.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“I would have known,” he said.
“But you weren’t her first extramarital affair.”
“No. She admitted that to me. But she was forced into accepting the attentions of other men.”
“Forced by who? Walter Merchant?”
“His stifling treatment of her, yes. It wasn’t something she was proud of. Why do you suppose she was seeing a therapist?”
“I didn’t know she was seeing a therapist.”
“For some time before I met her.”
“Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“Do you recall his name?”
“Duncan? Something like that.”
“Offices downtown here?”
“I don’t remember where his offices were.”
“Did she feel he was helping her?”
“She seemed to. In my opinion he was a crutch.”
“You’re not a believer in long-term therapy?”
“No.”
“Did she ever talk to you about her former lovers?”
“Hardly.”
“Never let even one name slip?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t ask?”
“I didn’t want to know.”
“So you wouldn’t have any idea who she’s been involved with since the end of your affair.”
“No. Nor do I care.”
“Do you know a health club employee named Glen Rigsby?”
“No.”
“How about an architect, Victor Runyon?”
“No.”
The names didn’t seem to sting him any, as they might have if he, like Merchant, was carrying a torch. That strengthened my impression that he’d been telling me the truth.
I asked, “How long did your affair last?”
“A little over four months.”
“You must have gotten to know her fairly well in that length of time.” The look on his face made me add, “Or did you?”
“Not as well as I thought I knew her,” April said. “What kind of food and music and shows she liked, what gave her pleasure, what made her laugh and cry. But not what she was like down deep inside.”
“The real Nedra Merchant.”
“Yes. Glimpses, that was all. Just... glimpses.”
“How would you characterize her?”
“As a good person, basically. Kind, generous.”
“Caring, loving?”
“To a point.”
“What point is that?”
“The point when things... when I allowed matters to get completely out of hand. When I told her I was ready to throw away my marriage and my family for her. Then she rebelled.”
“Rebelled?”
“She became cold, distant. Possessiveness turned her off, she said. She’d had enough of that from her husband. Once she was free of him, she wouldn’t permit herself to be tied down again to anyone.”
“So she’s the one who ended your relationship.”
“Yes. I was bitter at the time, but now I understand that she had my best interests at heart, as well as her own. Forcing me out of her life was an act of kindness.”
“Then you don’t think it would have worked for the two of you in the long run.”
“No. Not anymore I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Many reasons. Race, temperament, attitude, the fact that I really didn’t know her and she didn’t know me. What we had... it was physical, not spiritual.”
“One person I talked to thinks she’s obsessed with men. That she’s a control freak who uses them for her own amusement, then casts them aside. Would you say there’s any truth in that?”
April frowned. “No, I wouldn’t. She isn’t that way.”
“Isn’t a controlling personality? Doesn’t encourage her lovers to become obsessed with her?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But you were obsessed with her.”
“The fault was mine, not hers. I suppose the person who defamed her character is Walter Merchant?”
I neither confirmed nor denied it.
“Have you met Nedra? Talked to her at any length?”
“No,” I said, “not yet.”
“When you do,” April said, “you’ll see the truth. She’s not some sort of modern-day Circe, for God’s sake. She is a good, warm person who...” He couldn’t seem to find the rest of what he wanted to say. He finished lamely, or maybe not so lamely, “She’s innocent.”
Maybe he believed that, but I didn’t. She might not be the wicked sorceress of Walter Merchant’s depiction; she might even be the basically good person who lived in Lawrence April’s memory. But whatever Nedra Adams Merchant really was, she damned well wasn’t innocent.
There are half a dozen health and athletic clubs in the SoMa area, where you can swim, play tennis and racquet ball, take aerobic and tae kwon do classes, work on the old jump shot, lift weights, challenge Nautilus machines, and sweat your ass off — literally — in steam rooms. Two of them hadn’t been there five years ago; two others were out in the Showplace Square area, a couple of miles west. The remaining two were within walking distance of New Montgomery, and of Nedra Merchant’s old office on Second Street, and it took me a little better than an hour to check out the pair of them.
Nobody at either place knew Nedra Adams Merchant.
Nobody at either place had ever heard of a man named Glen Rigsby.
When I got back to my office I found one message waiting. From Kay Runyon: Had I found out anything yet? Would I please call her as soon as possible?
No, I would not please call as soon as possible. I was not ready yet to make a report; I wanted a better handle on Nedra Merchant first. Premature reports do more harm than good. All too often they distort the facts and build more anxiety than they relieve. A prime example of that is the broadcast media’s handling of sudden-disaster situations, such as the ’89 earthquake. They disseminate all sorts of conflicting and hyperbolic information, whip everybody into a frenzy, and then after it’s all over, instead of issuing apologies they blithely pat themselves on the back with endless promos telling you what a fine job of “responsible reporting” they did.
Another thing Kay Runyon wanted was her hand held. I didn’t blame her for that, but I’m no good at coddling and empty reassurances. It’s awkward for me and awkward for the client.
I looked up Glen Rigsby in the White Pages. No listing under that name, nor under G. Rigsby. I tried a few variants in case Walter Merchant had misremembered the exact name: Rigby, Grigsby, Grigby. No listing under any of those either.
So maybe he lived in another Bay Area city. Or maybe he’d moved to Blue Ball, Pennsylvania, or maybe he was dead: five years is a long time. And even if I did find him alive and cooperative, he was a prohibitive long shot to be the threatening caller.
I checked in the White Pages, then in the Yellow Pages under Physicians — Psychiatry and under Psychologists. Nobody named Duncan was listed. It might be that Lawrence April had misremembered his name. Or he worked for a clinic. Or he had moved away, or changed professions, or retired, or died. And if I found him alive and still practicing, professional ethics would prevent him from telling me anything revealing about Nedra Merchant. Besides which, a psychiatrist or psychologist was a highly unlikely candidate for a phone freak.
Not for the first time today I thought: What the hell am I doing all this for? Chances are, it’s going to break open by itself before much longer. If Nedra Merchant was in fact a man-eater, she was due to toss Victor Runyon over pretty soon anyway, for the crime of possessiveness. When that happened, the caller would go away, too, to devil Nedra’s next conquest. Kay Runyon confronting her wasn’t likely to do either of them any good, and it was not going to save the marriage; if their little family unit was to be saved at all, it would be by Victor coming to his senses as Lawrence April had apparently done.